DALLETT:

My name is Nancy Dallett and I'm here with Mr. Herbert Hulse on Monday, April 10, 1989. We're at his home in Snohomish, Washington. And Mr. Hulse did not come through Ellis Island as an immigrant, unlike most of the other tapes we have here. He spent time at Ellis Island while he was in the Coast Guard in 1942, is it? '42 or '43? And this is the beginning of side one of interview number [DP-15].

HULSE:

I suppose, uh, I don't know how much of this would be of interest to you. I was finishing my third year at Cornell in 1941 when Pearl Harbor was attacked, and I finished the third year in June of that year and took a temporary job for about a month in New York City. And then joined the Coast Guard.

DALLETT:

What was your temporary job in New York City?

HULSE:

Well, it was a rather strange little job. I was counting some types of receipts for Carter Little, Carter Products, which made Carter Little Liver Pills. It was just a clerical job and the job was for some type of government survey. And we really were never told what we were doing, but we were counting for days on end.

DALLETT:

And how old were at that time?

HULSE:

Pause a minute, let's see.

DALLETT:

Had you gone straight into Cornell from...

HULSE:

I was, uh, no, I had not. I graduated from high school when I was sixteen. I had spent one year at the State Institute of Applied Agriculture at Farmingdale and...

DALLETT:

Tell me a bit about that. Let's maybe pick it up a little earlier. You had come through and graduated, you were born and raised on Long Island?

HULSE:

Yes, I was. Actually, I was born in New York City. My family lived in Connecticut for a couple of years. But I came out to Long Island when I was two years old and actually grew up there, in Babylon. When I came out of high school, which was 1938, there was no work, and I took a job on a farm on Long Island that is now a massive housing development. But my job was, uh, general farm work, harvesting spinach and hoeing peppers. I can remember hoeing miles and miles of peppers forever. And, uh, sometime in the summer of that year I decided that this was not going to be my life's work, and thought I'd better get a little more education, so I went to State Institute of Applied Agriculture at Farmingdale. And mostly because I really liked agriculture and farming., And I spent a year and a summer there.

DALLETT:

What kind of training did you get there?

HULSE:

Uh, general farm, uh, training, some technical work, of course. And actually, during the following summer, we did farm practice work, learning to drive tractors and plant and harvest and things of that nature. They had horses and cows. We learned to milk and all that type of thing. So it was just good, general farm work we were learning. And, uh, some...

DALLETT:

Let me just ask you one question about that. It's 1938, I think...

HULSE:

Let's see, in, that would have been, uh, '38 and '39, because I went Cornell in the fall of '39.

DALLETT:

So was there a sense then, of, you're going into agriculture. You talked about there not being any work because of the Depression, was there a sense that if you went into agriculture you'd be safer?

HULSE:

Well, I think, more than that, I liked farming so well and I thought that maybe somehow if I had enough knowledge and knew exactly what I was doing, perhaps I could acquire in some manner a few acres of land and get started in actually farming. I liked it then, I love it now. I never did become a farmer, though. But while I was at Farmingdale I thought that perhaps I should go for a little more advanced work. And I applied and was admitted to Cornell and that was in the fall of '39. And I was there three, three years. The fall of '39, fall of '40, fall of '41, yes. And those were pretty exciting times because we all knew, somehow, well, I cold have gotten an exemption for my last year, I was kind of caught up in the idea that we should, you know, do something. And quite possibly if I survived the war, that it would be a better benefit to come back and finish my fourth year after the war, which proved to be true. I was a so-so student for the first three years, but after the war I was an honor student. So, you know, there's a little more maturity and a little more willingness to learn at that point. Let's see, what further can I tell you? What would you like to know?

DALLETT:

Well, tell me, let's talk a little bit about that very time when, uh, when you had to make that decision. You could have had your deferment, or you could have...

HULSE:

Well, I think, uh, that many of my friends are going into the service. And I didn't have any immediate career goals that had to be met. I think we all felt like the whole world was pretty much in limbo at that time. None of us really knew what to do. A few of the men went back, and a few of my classmates went back and did finish their last year. A lot of them did the same as I did and joined the service, went to war.

DALLETT:

You also, you had a choice then of which branch you would join.

HULSE:

Uh, yes. Uh, I guess, uh, in all honesty I joined the Coast Guard because my uncle was the commandant of the Third Naval District in the, in New York. And, uh, my eyesight was not that good. I really didn't want to be a soldier, you know, just join the, it didn't appeal to me at all. And I had been raised on Long Island and, which, uh, in Babylon, which was a water community. And I had a sailboat and I had a little outboard motor and spent a lot of time on the water clamming, fishing, and I liked the water. And, uh, I could see the Coast Guard as being an extension of that, you know, doing something that I liked. And it was. It was a good choice. And then I had an uncle that, like I say, was a commandant of the Third Naval District. So I went down to see him at an office in lower Manhattan and told him I was going to sign up and it might as well be the Coast Guard. And he said, fine. I just barely made the eye test, just barely passed. In fact I had to take it twice. I think I had a couple of items memorized by the time I took the second test. And then was shipped almost immediately to Ellis Island, which was a training station for the United States Coast Guard. And there were no immigrants there at all. I mean, I remember walking all over the island looking in these huge, huge rooms which were completely empty. And, uh, on the island, I think I was there about three weeks, if I remember, not very long. And mostly we marched. We learned to march. We marched all over Ellis Island. We also stood guard duty because at that time there was a kind of real scare of an invasion. Of course, it was completely unfounded, but who knew that. And so at night, I drew guard duty I don't think more that two or three times but we marched on the walls, the perimeter, on Ellis Island with our password and so forth looking for attack by whatever's going to attack. Shouldered a gun, and...

DALLETT:

What was going to attack?

HULSE:

I have no idea. But, of course, uh, shortly after that they did land saboteurs. You're probably familiar with that story, on Long Island. No, is that true? From Ellis Island I was shipped to lifeboat station in Amagansett and when I went out there we patrolled the entire beach, uh, and the, our lifeboat station was called the Napeague Lifeboat Station. I don't know if it even exists anymore. But it's on a little spit of land between Amagansett and, uh, well, on the road to, uh, the end of the island, Montauk Point. But we patrolled, it seemed to me, it was maybe a three of four mile patrol that two of us would make together and meet up another patrol and that type of thing, because shortly, about that time, the Germans landed four saboteurs from submarine on the beach, and they were actually met by two Coast Guard patrolmen who wisely did not try to intercept them or arrest them or anything like that, but pretended they had some strange story, and you can probably research it and find out what their story was, but the Coast Guardsmen kind of realized, you know, that these were German people and were landed to create whatever they going to do, which I don't know. Uh, so they went back to their station, reported that, and it was reported. These four saboteurs went over to a railroad station and waited for a train and actually went into New York City by train and were captured. And, uh, that happened not too long after the war broke out. So I suppose there was some apprehension, you know, other people landing and sabotaging our industries and that type of thing. But, uh, about that time I was sent to the Mapeague Lifeboat Station and we must have, it went from a very small station, maybe twenty or so people, to a huge station where we had probably well over a hundred people. I never really paid that much attention, but you can probably research it if it's of any interest. And we did some pretty heavy patrolling of the beach to intercept anybody that attacked Long Island. (he laughs) My first experience at Ellis Island was when I was first inducted and it was a training station. We learned to march and...

DALLETT:

That was the three week period that you mentioned?

HULSE:

I would say. I can't really recall. It seemed to me that I was there just a few weeks. It wasn't very long, maybe even a shorter time that that. We were being taught some seamanship and I went in as a, uh, Seaman Second Class, which is almost as low as you can get ont he totem pole, and we were taught some seamanship. But I'd been on the water all my life and knew quite a bit about boats and how to tie knots and all that sort of thing, so, uh, I really didn't learn too much there. And then I spent possibly, well, from the summer of '42 to sometime in 1943, and I'm sure it was the winter, that winter of '43 when I was there, because I remember it was pretty cold walking the beaches. And sometime in the spring of '43 we had the opportunity to go aboard a ship if we elected to do so. And the war was passing us by and we were just marching up and down the beach of Long Island, and it seemed like it was not much of a contribution at that point. So a group of us requested, uh, assignment to ship. And from the Napeague Lifeboat Station I was transferred back to Ellis Island which, at that point, became an assembly station where they were putting crews together for the, for the ships.

DALLETT:

So in that one year Ellis Island had shifted from more of a basic training sort of thing.

HULSE:

To my knowledge, yes.

DALLETT:

From your experience.

HULSE:

From your experience. Whether there were other services that were using the island as kind of a temporary type of thing of not, I don't know. Uh, but...

DALLETT:

And your initial training was just a three week period.

HULSE:

Just a very short period.

DALLETT:

And any idea of how many people were there? I mean, it's such a huge place.

HULSE:

Uh, it numbers well into the hundred, but I don't remember it being massive amounts of people there.

DALLETT:

Because it is a massive institution.

HULSE:

It is a huge place, but like I say, looking into those rooms, they were empty. There was just vast amounts of empty space there. And we were, our barracks where we lived were some of the smaller buildings on the perimeter.

DALLETT:

Can you tell me about that? Any, you know, direction you can give to which were the barracks would be interesting.

HULSE:

Well, it seemed to me that as you made the boat landing, the main administration was there, and then to the right there were some primitive buildings. Because where we bunked just beyond that was kind of the jetty in the water and the bulwark. So I would say as you approached the island from the boat launch, where we stayed was to the right. And how many buildings there were there, I don't recall, but I know there was one. And it was not the main facility, but it was a smaller building where we were put up.

DALLETT:

Tell me more, again, about this guarding. I mean, in addition to your first lessons in the military, tell me something, you say you had a password?

HULSE:

Oh, we had a password, and I can't recall what it was, but we had a point that we marched from a corner. I recall that I marched from a corner to another corner, and just back and forth. And would meet someone on that corner who had to the next corner. And I believe the watches were four on, four and eight. But there were so many people to do that that we drew watches just very infrequently. I don't think I drew watch more than about three times the few weeks that I was there, as I recall.

DALLETT:

As you recall, I mean, this is like your first really sort of, uh, duty in the military, right?

HULSE:

Oh, yes. Yes, it was.

DALLETT:

So, I mean, you look back now, maybe it seems silly, you know the idea of guarding, since we now know in hindsight, nothing really serious happened. You were guarding, but how did it feel...

HULSE:

Well, in all honestly, amongst a group of us, we didn't think it was too serious at the time. We failed to see that any massive attack was gong to be launched on Ellis Island. And if there was an attack on New York, why would they bother on Ellis Island. I mean, it was a little island out there in the bay. (he laughs) So we really never took it too seriously but, still, of course, there's always the possibility that somebody could land, and I think it would be by air if they did, but, uh, I don't think that our enemies in the war knew any more than we did. They may have thought that was some bulwark or a fort of some type which, of course, it wasn't. And, uh, I suppose if you have a...

DALLETT:

What were you trained to do if someone appeared or...

HULSE:

Well, it was very, we had a very brief training. If you see anything suspicious call the captain of the guard, or whatever he was called at that time. Get him real fast.

DALLETT:

So they really weren't setting you up for what they though you were guarding for. It was just...

HULSE:

Not really. They really handed me a rifle, you know, and said, you watch.

DALLETT:

You were armed.

HULSE:

Oh, yes. We were armed.

DALLETT:

With a rifle.

HULSE:

Oh, yes. And watch for anything suspicious approaching the island. If you see anything, why, the the officer of the day, I suppose he was called. So we marched and we looked, but of course nothing happened.

DALLETT:

And at this time, I thing you mentioned that there weren't any immigrants there, there weren't immigrants coming through Ellis Island at that time. Were there any, uh, deportation hearings, or did you know of any people that were being questioned or held?

HULSE:

In all honesty, there was nothing that we knew of. If there was anyone being held, or if there was anything going on it was going on in a completely different area than we were in. We knew of no immigrants being there. I kind of had the feeling that they shut it down completely as an immigration station during the war.

DALLETT:

And what kind of shape was it in in 1942? Was it in decay at that point?

HULSE:

Uh, I would say, I would say it was very so-so. It looked well-used to me. It certainly had the appearance of, if you can visualize just mobs, thousands of people going through there, because it looked worn, kind of shop worn.

DALLETT:

Did it have an eerie sort of feel about it, or...

HULSE:

Well, the huge rooms really did, in a way. The, uh, there were massive rooms and nothing in there. You just had the feeling that, you just wondered what had taken place through there, through those facilities.

DALLETT:

And then you came back. You had your original training in '42, a couple of weeks, and then you came back and it was used as an assembly station, putting crews together.

HULSE:

Yes. They were mobilizing crews. It appeared to me that that's what they were doing anyway. We were in there on a very temporary assignment. And, uh, there was a group of us that had been assembled there, and the few that I got to know, at least their faces and a few names, later appeared on the ship with me, and we sailed, you know, together for quite some time. A good friend of mine by the name of Eddie Boggs also transferred in from the Napeague Lifeboat Station at about the same time I did, and, uh, we kind of buddied together at the facility and he ended up on a, uh, in what's called an A.K.A., which is a supply ship, transport supply ship. He was a Boatswain's mate, uh, First Class. I was a Boatswain's Mate Second Class, by that time.

DALLETT:

I'm sorry, what's the term?

HULSE:

Excuse me, I was not. I believe I was a Coxswain at that time. It's, uh, well, it goes from an Apprentice Seaman to Seaman Second to Seaman First to Coxswain to Boatswain's Mate Second to Boatswain's Mate First to Chief Boatswain's Mate in that order. I think the rates are pretty much the same today, as far as I know. Uh, I was a Coxswain and he was a Boatswain's Mate either first or second class. And, uh, so Eddie, I know, ended up on this A.K.A. because I met him in a port in Norfolk. I saw his ship and we got together. And, uh, I ended up on an A.P.A., which is an attack ship transport.

DALLETT:

So you had, you had no choice about...

HULSE:

No, you were assigned. Oh, yeah, we, you were assigned and, uh, and this was really a Hooligan's navy at that time because we had, you have to visualize the times. I mean, it was different. We had a good officer complement, I think, that pretty well had some experience, except for the junior officers, that had very little. We had a crew that was very green, it was so green, and this was a true story it has nothing to do with Ellis Island. (he laughs) We were so green that we did not know how to take up the gangplank on the ship. This is a true story. And, uh, our officer of the deck, who was a lieutenant and was an old time Coast Guardsman but had never been on a ship like this, he'd been on cutters and other smaller Coast Guard ships, but this was an attack transport. And, uh, I won't mention his name, but the lieutenant, uh, knew that we had to get it rigged up some kind of block and tackle, and then have some kind of power on the block and tackle to pull the gangplank up. And it was quite essential that we get the gangplank up, because we had to get underway. (he laughs) So I sent to another ship that was getting ready to sail to watch to see how they raised the gangplank. This was a true story. Because the way he had been doing it, you know. We had raised it once but it had, he must have had forty men on a rope that were all pulling together. And somehow we all knew there had to be another way of getting up the gangplank. So I did find out how it was raised, and we went from there. But it was a very, very green ship. It was extremely green.

DALLETT:

Did you go and pose just as an observer, or did you come clean and say...

HULSE:

Oh, no. I just posed as an observer. I would not admit that we, no.

DALLETT:

...and say we don't know how to get our gangplank.

HULSE:

Not at all. (he laughs)

DALLETT:

Did they choose you because you were more diplomatic?

HULSE:

I don't know I was chosen. I was Coxswain, I guess it was my job. But, of course, you run it through what's called a snatch block, and you run it over to your free-wheeling drum, and then you put a couple of turns on the drum and let the drum pick up the gangplank. It's all pretty simple when you watch it being done. But we were all kind of amused by that. We found out how easy it was. Then we did go on maneuvers. I think I've left Ellis Island now as far as that part of the story goes. We went maneuvers on the Chesapeake, and we were pretty green there, but then we were learning, you know. And we would let rope ladders down and simulate people going down the ladders and people coming up the rope ladders. And that's the way it was done during the war. Uh, I became Boatswain's Mate Second. I was in charge of the third deck division. I wasn't actually in charge. We had a chief Boatswains' Mate that was in charge, and we had a First Class Boatswain's Mate that really wasn't suited for this kind of work. He was more suited to braiding cables and things like that, but he really wasn't suited to running a deck division. So that fell to my lot. And we went into the Chesapeake and practiced there and we, uh, eventually came back to New York.

DALLETT:

How long a period did you go on these training maneuvers?

HULSE:

I think it lasted over a period of, uh, maybe a month to two months, somewhere in there. The ship was the U.S.S. Bayfield so, I would suppose...

DALLETT:

What was it, sorry?

HULSE:

The U.S.S. Bayfield.

DALLETT:

Bayfield?

HULSE:

Bayfield.

DALLETT:

Bayfield.

HULSE:

Uh-huh. It was a Coast Guard operated ship. And, uh, we, after maneuvers in Chesapeake, we came back to New York and then we out as a convoy. We landed in Scotland where we were welcomed as heroes, although we hadn't done nothing at all. Came up to port...

DALLETT:

Just being an American...

HULSE:

Just an American ship coming in. And that was in January of 1944. Maybe you could write a book, you know, beyond the Ellis Island survey.

DALLETT:

We're going to start with you.

HULSE:

Yeah, sure. Uh, so we came up to the Firth of Clyde, spent I think just overnight in glasgow. Another little side story is that I looked up the father of a young girl that my mother had taken for the duration of the war. You know, some children were shipped over to our country and, uh, kept here, during World War Two, and my mother took this child as a very young girl. I think she was maybe four or five years old.

DALLETT:

She was Scottish?

HULSE:

Scottish girl. The mother and father were separated. He was an air raid warden, and her mother I never met, but they had some problems, you know. And the child was, I guess, somewhat in limbo. There was some danger there. So my mother agreed to take the child, kept her during the war. That's another whole long story, but after the war she went back and then the young lady came over, stayed with my mother again for quite a while, married a young man, they live in Montauk Point, New York. They have four children. And one of her daughters is at Cornell, so. Anyway, you know, we can go on forever with this. Are you bored yet with all this?

DALLETT:

Not at all, not at all.

HULSE:

So anyway, we're back in New York and we're out on convoy and we went to Scotland. And then from there we...(tape ends abruptly) END OF SIDE ONE BEGINNING OF SIDE TWO

DALLETT:

This is the beginning of side two of interview number [DP-15] with Herbert Hulse.

HULSE:

We moved periodically between Plymouth and Yarmouth so that German raiders would not get a fix on the ship and bomb us. And then on the night of June 5th we took troops aboard and we made the Normandy invasion. And my job was as Boatswain's Mate put the small boats to shore over the side and drop the rope ladders. The troops would clamor down into the boats and then I was also a pointer on a twenty millimeter. So I would go to my gun and wait for attacks. But the guns were pretty much secured unless there was air raids and they had radar, of course, in those days. So we knew that when there was attacks they would signal general quarters and we would all get up on the guns and so forth. I think probably one of the most amusing things was, and this has absolutely nothing to do with Ellis Island. (he laughs)

DALLETT:

That's okay, really. Forget Ellis Island.

HULSE:

But we had had a lot of mock air raids, practice getting up on your guns and the attacks never came. And we were off Normandy. We were there, we laid off there about ten days even after troops went ashore, because we acted as a hospital ship, uh, later. But during these air raids nothing happened. And we had boat crews that were otherwise unassigned during an air raid because they had no guns or anything in particular for them to do. But their duty was to come up on one of the upper decks, actually onto the mess deck, which is only one deck below the main deck with, I think, the theory being that they had a chance of, if we're hit, getting out of the ship, you know. If they're down below and we're hit and we sink right away they would not. So at one point there was an air raid, and we were attacked by a German dive bomber. We were flying a barrage balloon at that them and we think he swerved to miss that balloon just in time when he dropped his bomb and it landed not very far from our ship, and just shook the entire ship, just tremendous explosion, knocking, all the seats off the johns and things like that. And, uh, they said there was quite a spectacle to see the boat crews coming up out of the hole where they had not been mustering on the mess deck before during the mock air raids or the air raids that never happened, but they were climbing up each other's shoulders to get up on that mess deck. And I think that pretty well cured their laziness. But we went through the war pretty unscathed. We did the Normandy invasion, then we did the invasion of southern France. We sent troops to shore at St. Raphael. And from there...

DALLETT:

Were you beginning to feel more prepared?

HULSE:

Oh, yeah. We were trained. By that time we were trained. We pretty well knew, we were getting to be old hands, and particularly it was very sad to see the wounded coming back aboard ship, as we seemed to be getting the head cases for some reason, and some of the injuries were just so horrible, you know. Our ship at one time was completely full of wounded, including our quarters. We slept where we could so they could have a berth to sleep in. That was pretty sad. That was very distressing to see that. Uh, so then we, before we made the...

DALLETT:

Were they all American soldiers?

HULSE:

Oh, no. There was German soldiers, there was French civilians that had been hurt. That was pretty much, mostly American soldiers. Soldiers from other countries too, English.

DALLETT:

And the, so it was more like a floating hospital at this point?

HULSE:

Yeah. It acted as a hospital.

DALLETT:

And what kind...

HULSE:

There was a great deal of wounded people during the Normandy invasion. Then we had, we were very fortunate. We did not lose any boat crews completely, but we had one lad that was, a few boys that were wounded, you know, boats going in and shrapnel and so forth. But we didn't lose anybody. We did through accident later, but not from an attack. Uh, from Normandy, I can remember about the tenth day there was a terrible storm and there was some doubt then about whether the invasion was a success. But, of course, it was. I remember some, a huge ship that was, uh, moored to us in our lee, because they were in some trouble from the storm. And that was kind of interesting. I can remember these things. I haven't thought about them in years, really. So we went to Italy next and before we made this thing, the Raphael invasion, and we laid off Naples. We saw, got ashore, got some good Italian food, some very bad wine, some souvenirs. Saw the ruins of Pompeii, did a little sightseeing. Never got ashore in France until after the St. Raphael invasion, and then we just got a brief shore leave, a couple hours, and just walked. There was no civilians, it was just all, more or less demolished. From there we went, after the St. Raphael invasion, we came back to the States, went to Norfolk, did some refitting. Left Norfolk, and I can't remember the date, but I'm sure it was in the late fall of '44, and came down, went through the Panama Canal and sailed first to Hawaii, got ashore there, I thought it was just great, I thought I would love to come back after the war it was so nice. That was in January, I'm sure. January or February. Probably, uh, the invasion was in, it was probably January of '45 that we were there. Then we hit a few, oh, islands where we were just kind of waiting for something else to happen. And I know we went to Saipan, but the invasion...

DALLETT:

You mean waiting...

HULSE:

Later. You know, after...

DALLETT:

Waiting to see where you'd be needed next.

HULSE:

Yeah. I'm sure they had plans for us but of course at our level we didn't know what they were, but we knew the ship was there for some purpose. And, uh, we, uh, oh, we had some rec, you know, daytime recreation in Saipan and, uh, I'm trying to remember, but I think that when we were taking stores, possibly, I don't remember whether it was Norfolk. No, I think it was in Hawaii that we lost our Chief Boatswain's Mate through an accident on the ship. One of the bang lines broke and the block came and hit him, knocked him down two decks. And he lived a short time packed in ice, but he died. We eventually made the Iwo Jima invasion, and I did see the flag go up on Mount Suribachi. I didn't think it was such a big deal, except we were glad that it went up because it kind of signalled that they had the island at that time, but I never realized they were going to make a statue. (he laughs) Picture, and so forth. Uh, there we, uh, had one attack by a kamikaze pilot, who made a pass at a lot of ships. But I think whatever he was on had worn off because every gun in that fleet opened up on him and he just flew off into the distance and never was shot down and never dropped on any ships. So I think that he had a second though here. It was strange because, talking to someone else many years after the war who'd witnessed the same thing, you know, and it stuck in his mind until, we knew it was a kamikaze pilot, made a pass at us, but he...

DALLETT:

How did you know he was a kamikaze pilot?

HULSE:

Well, because they were...

DALLETT:

Did you come to recognize...

HULSE:

No, but he was by himself and, uh, we just, the way he was making passes at the ships. You know, he wasn't dropping bombs or anything like that. He obviously intended to fly into one of them. And, of course, that was, at that particular time, that's when they were doing that. That was, they were starting to lose the war, and turned to desperate measures. So they were using kamikaze pilots. But this one, thank goodness, he either had a change of heart, or I don't know just what happened there, but he flew off into the distance. Then from there we, I can't say we made the invasion, but we made a pass at the other side of Okinawa. And to our knowledge, the main invasion was on the other side of the island. And, uh, our ship went through the preliminaries of disembarking of small boats, loading some people into the small boats, and the boats headed toward the island, but before they reached the island they turned around and came back and we put them back on the ship. So it was our understanding that they were making a faint at the other side of the island to draw troops there. And, uh, our troops never did go ashore there, so. That was the end of the war for me. We sailed back to San Francisco. We got some long liberties at that time. We had ten days. And I was not married, had no great, I knew I was going to be going home eventually anyway. So I thought, well, I saw a little bit of San Francisco. Another friend and I took the train and went down to Los Angeles and had some fun there. And, uh, we were there ten days and on our way back the war ended. So we came back into San Francisco the night they had a big riot, you know, and they were, had cleaned out all the liquor stores and such nonsense as that, tipped over cars and things like that. We met some gentleman who took us out to his ranch outside of town. We spent a couple of days out there just having drinks and playing and celebrating the end of the war. When I got back on the ship I was two days overdue and nobody missed me there was so much confusion. So I went ashore from there, was transferred to station there, and then was transferred east and was mustered out. Actually, I went to a mustering out station in Brooklyn. I can't recall exactly where it was.

DALLETT:

Mustering out? What does that mean?

HULSE:

Well, we were being released from the service.

DALLETT:

Demobilized.

HULSE:

Demobilized.

DALLETT:

Mustering out.

HULSE:

Well, maybe that's my own. Anyway, uh, at that point I had had enough service and I wanted to get back to Cornell and finish my year. And I think it was about January or February of '46 that I ended up in the station as one of the non-coms, non-commissioned officer, that was aiding in putting other Coast Guardsmen out of the service. They went through a little process, and I was part of that process, I was putting other people out. So anyway, I complained bitterly that I had a lot more service and so forth. And a lot of these people that were coming through, and it was time for me to come out of there. And, of course, they didn't want to release me. So I wrote to my congressman and I soon was sent to Philadelphia where I was actually released from the service in Philadelphia. So I don't think they wanted anyone to see me being released from the service there. I was part of the crew, so they sent me out of there and I got released. I got back to Cornell for the spring term, in '46, and finished college in February of 47. Boy, what a history, huh? Gosh! (he laughs) You got so little about Ellis Island, I'm just embarrassed.

DALLETT:

No, don't be at all. No, I knew that you weren't going to tell me an immigration tale. No, it's very interesting that, you know, it's just a different kind of experience that you had. And that will conclude side two of interview number [DP-15] with Herbert Hulse.